Quinn: The angst of the Silicon Valley Gold Rush

The companies begin with so much optimism and kick-down-doors gusto. But most live just 20 months after their last funding round.

We don't hear much about this period of struggle and near death as the money dries up. Investors typically don't crow about how many companies in their portfolio are on life support.

Few founders blog about the wolf approaching the door.

Instead, it's the survivors that get all the attention: WhatsApp bought by Facebook for $19 billion. Snapchat, at 3, turns down a few billion to go it alone. In retrospect, these successes have a glow to them, as if everything, even the hard times, were preordained to lead to an inevitable, incredible exit.

But Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of "No Exit," a Kindle Single, throws a harsh light on the reality of the Silicon Valley Gold Rush.

Although he is a writer based in New York, his work should be required reading for budding entrepreneurs, many of whom he says have a romantic expectation that hard work and smarts will equal success.

"No Exit" is not a pity party for entrepreneurs. Lewis-Kraus focuses on the two founders of Boomtrain, a San Francisco startup that is "a personalization platform." The two have gone through an incubator and received some funding but, as Lewis-Kraus chronicles, the money is close to running out.

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The drama revolves around whether the founders can survive the roller coaster of stress to their next round of funding, if it ever came. (In the end, Boomtrain received $2 million, so it lives on.)

There is a flood of people coming to Silicon Valley who want to make their mark in a startup. In fact, wanting to be an entrepreneur has come to be seen by the young set as almost a legitimate career choice, Lewis-Kraus says, like picking a profession with set rules and guidelines -- a lawyer or an accountant perhaps.

Except of course, it's not another job category.

It's more like being an artist, said Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur who teaches at Stanford, UC Berkeley and Columbia University.

"They are driven by the passion for creating something out of nothing," he said. "If they don't have the passion for creation, they are going to be incredibly depressed when they get knocked down."

In many ways, there has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. There is more seed money for early staged startups, and the technology needed to launch is generally inexpensive.

The startup community has also benefited from an important shift in how Silicon Valley looks at failure, Blank said.

The Valley has always been more accepting of failure than other regions. But still, there is always blame to go around. In the past, when a company died, blame fell on leadership for failure to execute the business plan.

Still, the process is harrowing. A study by CB Insights found that 71 percent of companies die about 20 months after receiving their last funding round.

"There's a conflicting message in the Valley," said Lewis-Kraus. "You are supposed to be passionate about your company. But you are also supposed to have a mercenary attitude to it. You aren't supposed to take it personally."

Lewis-Kraus has heard from some readers, budding entrepreneurs who said his tale helped them realize they would keep their jobs and forego their business dreams.

Others said they were inspired to start their own firm.

Of course, it will never stop feeling personal even if the plan is fired and not the CEO. We may have taken some of the bite out of failure, but the angst of trying to make a go of it will not go away.